Name: Lemonade
Ingredients: 2 lemons; 2 lbs loaf sugar; 1 oz tartaric acid; 4 pints boiling water; 4 pints cold water; ice (to taste)

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Put the juice and peel of the lemons into a basin.
Add the loaf sugar and tartaric acid.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Allow it to stand overnight.

Strain and serve

Strain through a piece of muslin into a large basin.
Add the cold water and mix well.
Serve with ice if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Provide the juice and peel that give the drink its main citrus flavour and aroma.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon and acid.
Tartaric acid: Adds sourness that gives the lemonade its tart bite.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.